I’m one of those folks who doesn’t really fit into either camp. I think that abortion would ideally be prohibited late-term, but that it’s not a moral issue early-term, with the dividing line being set by brain development in the fetus (I’d settle for drawing the line at the start of brain waves, but would prefer to err on the life side, and draw it at the point of first differentiation of neural tissue).
Where this becomes relevant to the OP is in what I would encourage in that early, pre-brain stage. Since it’s not a moral issue, it would be inappropriate to legislate one way or the other on what’s to be done at that stage, since you can’t (or rather, shouldn’t) legislate anything other than morality. But if I were asked for my opinion, I would ordinarily recommend that the pregnant woman keep the pregnancy and bear the child. However, in a case of rape or incest, my recommendation at that time (if asked) would be the opposite.
I think this is an overly simplistic view of anti-abortion beliefs. First, not everyone who is anti-abortion believes that life begins at conception, but in a black and white world where you’re either pro-choice or pro-life, they end up identifying as pro-life because, to them, it’s less wrong to ban all abortions, even reasonable early term ones, than to legalize all, and allow irresponsible and late-term abortions.
Second, just because one may believe life begins at conception doesn’t mean they necessarily believe that it’s always unjustified to end it. Again, this is a consequence of the black and white world view that life trumps everything, that not everyone subscribes to. For instance, I have met people who believe that life begins at conception, but there’s a meaningful difference between conception and first brain activity or when the child becomes viable or some other landmark, and that the moral justifications for ending that life are different depending on what stage it’s at. It’s really not that unlike saying it’s cruel to euthanize your perfectly healthy pet because you are tired of having him, but it’s not cruel if he’s near death and miserable.
As such, using rape as an example, it’s easy to see how someone could be of the first type because they think abortion as birth control and late term abortions are repugnant, but think that a very early term abortion in the case of rape is a legitimate use. Or for the second type, they might argue that, as long as the termination happens before a certain landmark, which it almost certainly would for a rape termination, it’s more evil to force the mother to have the child than to end the life of a child that has no brain activity or is unviable or wherever they draw those lines.
So, I think it’s easy to demonize pro-lifers as being inconsistent, and I agree that many of them probably are using it to further their particular agenda, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that those who aren’t are necessarily inconsistent or hypocritical as, though I don’t personally believe we should legislate it, I at least think at least my two examples are logically consistent.
If someone believes life begins at conception and killing it is no different than killing you or me then the unborn should have the same rights as you or me. The only exception I can see is life of the mother such that if the mother dies the unborn absolutely will die so may as well save the mother if possible.
Anything else puts a pro-lifer in the same camp as pro-choice people and they are just arguing about where to draw semi-arbitrary lines. It is not consistent to say life begins at conception and is as deserving of existence as you and I are and in the next breath to say you think it is ok to kill it under some circumstances.
FTR I am pro-choice and follow Chronos’ line of thinking.
This might be drifting off topic, but I strongly agree here. I never understood the whole “I don’t judge people” approach. Judging is an important part of life and being social. I think what most people mean when they talk negatively about judging is that they’re against discrimination, stereotypes, jumping to conclusions, and that sort of stuff, and those things are often bad things, but to not judge because of those is to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
For instance, I think most/all drugs should be legalized, but I will certainly judge people who use them based upon my own morality with those issues. Or, with this issue, I think abortion is morally repugnant in many cases, and I am justified in judging someone who gets one as being someone I don’t want to associate with, but it doesn’t mean I want to ban abortions. What matters is the actions they take based on those judgments.
This is pro-choice then and it is fine for people who are pro-choice to debate when and where it is ok for a woman to make that choice. Just as you can be pro-gun but believe there are reasonable restrictions on buying a gun.
If the position of a pro-lifer is NO abortion under any circumstances except in the case of rape or incest then that is an inconsistent view (and there are plenty of people out there advocating exactly this so it is not a fringe notion of a few). It is not the unborn child’s fault how it got there. If they deem it a life which enjoys all the protections you and I do then there is no consistent way to say it should be killed if it was a result of rape.
And I am saying you cannot believe the first without believing the second and be consistent.
If you want to say abortion is ok under some circumstances then you are saying the unborn does not have the same right to life you or I do and thus is somehow “lesser”. While you may want to call it “life” you are valuing it less than other life. After that it is all about quibbling where the lines should be drawn.
Yes, one that leads straight into the pro-choice camp.
Some people claim the issue is complex when they’re really just confusion. If you’re willing to declare that abortion is acceptable under some circumstances, then you have to make a choice about what those circumstances may be - and then you have to explain why that choice is yours and not the woman’s. In the cases of rape and incest, you have to explain why the human right to life of the fetus depends on the circumstances of its creation. You have to explain why you are willing to let him/her be murdered to atone for someone else’s actions.
Yes, you do have to be a simple absolutist about your moral opposition in order to differ with the pro-choice side at all.
As a pro-lifer who hedges on the issue of pregnancy by rape/incest, I actually have to agree with you. I tend to go back-and-forth on whether abortion is acceptable (but never ok) in the case of rape, which is wildly inconsistent with my opposition to abortion. I’m not defending the view, just pointing out (and admitting) that you are right.
Sure you can. The key, which is all too often overlooked in discussions of abortion, is that life, per se, is irrelevant. A fertilized ovum is clearly and unambiguously human life, but then, so is a cancerous tumor, or a culture of HeLa cells, and nobody argues that tumors or HeLa cells have rights. And on the other side of the coin, one can envision a thing that isn’t alive but which does have rights, such as an artificially-intelligent computer (such doesn’t yet exist, so far as we can tell, but it can be envisioned). The important question is not when life begins, but when personhood begins.
OK, I guess it would make sense, then, to address his objection to believing the first, but not the second, but replace “life” with “personhood”.
Here:
And I am saying you cannot believe the first [that [personhood] begins at conception] without believing the second [that a fetus has rights] and be consistent.
And, if you don’t believe that personhood begins at conception (the general “you”, not you in particular, since you don’t appear to believe that), then why be pro-life at that point in a pregnancy?
The pro-life position is you cannot abort period and that starts at conception. Why? Because it is a human life and killing it would be no different, morally, than killing you or me.
If you want to say, “Well, it is a collection of cells so while it is technically a human life it does not enjoy the same right to life that you or I do” then you are pro-choice. Perhaps you (general “you”) only make an exception for rape/incest but by definition you are valuing that life as less than other humans. Now we are in the realm of saying it is ok to abort and just debating on where the line should be drawn (if at all).
One can believe that personhood is not binary but rather a continuum, and that the fetus’s personhood is sufficient to outweigh some competing interests but not others.
This is an argument about labeling, though, and not about the underlying moral framework. The OP is asking, “how does one oppose abortion generally but make exceptions for rape and incest,” and you’re contending that people who hold those views should be termed pro-choice rather than pro-life. I suppose that’s fine, but it’s not how those terms are ordinarily used in typical US discourse.
We are noting two kinds of pro-lifer here as they are ordinarily used in typical US discourse:
Thinks at the moment of conception there is a human life and abortion should be banned in ALL cases.
Thinks at the moment of conception there is a human life but are willing to concede that in the case of rape/incest abortion is ok.
#2 is an inconsistent position. #2 has conceded the point pro-choice people make that while, technically, a human life may be there it is not worthy of the same consideration that you and I enjoy as humans and citizens. It is “lesser”. Not fully human. Not fully imbued with the rights you and I enjoy.
#2 is only consistent if they really believe #1 but are willing to go with #2 as a stepping stone to getting abortion completely banned. Tactically that makes sense if an outright ban of abortion is your agenda.
Why I agree with rape/incest exceptions: I feel it is tremendously unfair and cruel to force a woman to bear a child whose conception occured in an act of violence or controlling.
Hmmm… No. Pro-choice implies that the choice is up to the mother. You can think that the issue of abortion is too serious to let mothers decide. And as a result you’ll issue legislation. Which is what the overwhelming majority of people want. This legislation can forbid abortion after X weeks of gestation, or forbid it except in case of rape or whatever.
Even though I generally agree that stating that human life begins at conception and allowing abortion in case of rape isn’t really consistent, you could say the same about most pro-choice people. Especially those who argues that the foetus has no rights whatsoever since it’s dependant on the mother. Logically they should be in favour of abortion if the mother wants it regardless how late (including after 8 months, for instance). Most of them aren’t. So, to some extent, they’re “pro-life” too.
Unfair and cruel to the point where the mother may murder the embryo/fetus? Is that child always available for murdering?
And, my incest question still stands – would you be OK with an abortion for a pregnancy which was the result of siblings or cousins pairing (both above the age of consent)?
And, for both questions, when? Any time during the pregnancy? Only during the first three months? Six months?
What about when a woman rapes a child – for example, teacher with a student below the age of consent?
You certainly could, and I think you could take that up in a different thread if you wanted to pursue those questions. To me, the difference between “I think it’s murder, but it’s OK if the woman is raped” and “Well, obviously, one day before due date seems wrong, probably two days, …, well, maybe after viability it’s wrong, except if the mother’s life is in danger…” is pretty stark.
In any case, this thread is for pro-lifers, but feel free to start one for pro-choicers.
I’m sorry, but this is a strawman. It seesm that you’re arguing that pro-life means people who really want abortion banned in all cases and pro-choice is basically everything else, but there’s plenty of people who self-identify as pro-life and don’t hold that view. In fact, the only ones I’ve ever met who hold that view were the creepy people handing out pictures of aborted fetuses on my college campus; everyone I’ve met in real life who identifies doesn’t hold that position.
There are plenty of other reasonable definitions of those terms, and I feel like I gave at least two above, as I’ve specifically known people who identify as pro-life who hold those positions. You can say they’re really pro-choice all you want, but your argument is still invalid because, in one of those cases, it was someone who believes life begins at conception, but thinks the relative wrongness of the abortion changes based upon how developed the child is, where in a very early term abortion is less wrong than forcing a woman to mother the child of her rapist, and a later term one because she regretted consensual sex is more wrong. Yes, that perspective leaves a lot of ambiguity, but it’s exactly the sort of view that contradicts your assertion.
And even while I too personally hold the value of a human life as the most valuable of all rights, it doesn’t mean that it’s value is always greater than other rights in every circumstance. There is a very real qualitative difference between a freshly fertilized egg and a newborn baby. Some people assign identical rights to both, but a lot of people don’t.
This is rather getting into No-True-Scotsman territory, isn’t it? There certainly can be (and are) people who believe that there is some threshold beyond which abortion should be prohibited, but that threshold is not conception. Are those people “real pro-lifers”? Maybe, maybe not, but what does it matter?